*

*

*

*

*

and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead!

I was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken - his countenance in a few minutes became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated: the earth easily gave way, having already received some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre.

Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless.

346

LETTER

TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ.

ON

THE REV. W. L. BOWLES'S STRICTURES

ON THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.

"I'll play at Bowls with the sun and moon." - OLD SONG.

"My mither's auld, Sir, and she has rather forgotten hersel in speaking to my Leddy, that canna weel bide to be contradickit, (as I ken nobody likes it, if they could help themsels.)"

Dear Sir,

TALES OF MY LANDLORD, Old Mortality, vol. ii. p. 163.

Ravenna, February 7. 1821.

In the different pamphlets which you have had the goodness to send me, on the Pope and Bowles' controversy, I perceive that my name is occasionally introduced by both parties. Mr. Bowles refers more than once to what he is pleased to consider " a remarkable circumstance," not only in his letter to Mr. Campbell, but in his reply to the Quarterly. The Quarterly also and Mr. Gilchrist have conferred on me the dangerous honour of a quotation; and Mr. Bowles indirectly makes a kind of appeal to me personally, by saying, "Lord Byron, if he remembers the circumstance, will witness" - (witness IN ITALICS, an ominous character for a testimony at present).

I shall not avail myself of a "non mi ricordo," even after so long a residence in Italy ; - I do" remember the circumstance," and have no reluctance to relate it (since called upon so to do), as correctly as the distance of time and the impression of intervening events will permit me. In the year 1812, more than three ON THE REV. W. L. BOWLES'S STRICTURES, ETC. 347. years after the publication of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," I had the honour of meeting Mr. Bowles in the house of our venerable host of "Human Life," &c. the last Argonaut of classic English poetry, and the Nestor of our inferior race of living poets. Mr. Bowles calls this " soon after" the publication; but to me three years appear a considerable segment of the immortality of a modern poem. I recollect nothing of " the rest of the company going into another room," -nor, though I well remember the topography of our host's elegant and classically furnished mansion, could I swear to the very room where the conversation occurred, though the "taking down the poem" seems to fix it in the library. Had it been "taken up" it would probably have been in the drawing-room. I presume also that the "remarkable circumstance" took place after dinner; as I conceive that neither Mr. Bowles's politeness nor appetite would have allowed him to detain "the rest of the company" standing round their chairs in the "other room," while we were discussing "the Woods of Madeira," instead of circulating its vintage. Of Mr. Bowles's "good humour" I have a full and not ungrateful recollection; as also of his gentlemanly manners and agreeable conversation. I speak of the whole, and not of particulars; for whether he did or did not use the precise words printed in the pamphlet, I cannot say, nor could he with accuracy. Of "the tone of seriousness" I certainly recollect nothing: on the contrary, I thought Mr. Bowles rather disposed to treat the subject lightly; for he said (I have no objection to be contradicted if incorrect), that some of his good-natured friends had come to him and exclaimed, "Eh! Bowles! how came you to make the Woods of Madeira?" &c. &c. and that he had been at some pains and pulling down of the poem to convince them that he had never made "the Woods" do any thing of the kind. He was right, and I was wrong, and have been wrong still up to this acknowledgment; for I ought to have looked twice before I wrote that which involved an inaccuracy capable of giving pain. The fact was, that, although I had certainly before read " the Spirit of Discovery," I took the quotation from the review. But the mistake was mine, and not the review's, which quoted the passage correctly enough, I believe. I blundered - God knows how - into attributing the tremors of the lovers to "the Woods of Madeira," by which they were surrounded. And I hereby do fully and freely declare and asseverate, that the Woods did not tremble to a kiss, and that the lovers did. I quote from memory

"A kiss

Stole on the listening silence, &c. &c.

They [the lovers] trembled, even as if the power," &c.

And if I had been aware that this declaration would have been in the smallest degree satisfactory to Mr. Bowles, I should not have waited nine years to make it, notwithstanding that "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" had been suppressed some time previously to my meeting him at Mr. Rogers's. Our worthy host might indeed have told him as much, as it was at his representation that I suppressed it. A new edition of that lampoon was preparing for the press, when Mr. Rogers represented to me, that "I was now acquainted with many of the persons mentioned in it, and with some on terms of intimacy;" and that he knew " one family in particular to whom its suppression would give pleasure." I did not hesitate one moment, it was cancelled instantly; and it is no fault of mine that it has ever been republished. When I left England, in April, 1816, with no very violent intentions of troubling that country again, and amidst scenes of various kinds to distract my attention, - almost my last act, I believe, was to sign a power of attorney, to yourself, to prevent or suppress any attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was sub

sequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal communication from a third person.

I have dwelt for an instant on these circumstances, because it has sometimes been made a subject of bitter reproach to me to have endeavoured to suppress that satire. I never shrunk, as those who know me know, from any personal consequences which could be attached to its publication. Of its subsequent suppression, as I possessed the copyright, I was the best judge and the sole master. The circumstances which occasioned the suppression I have now stated; of the motives, each must judge according to his candour or malignity. Mr. Bowles does me the honour to talk of "noble mind," and "generous magnanimity; " and all this because "the circumstance would have been explained had not the book been suppressed." I see no "nobility of mind" in an act of simple justice; and I hate the word "magnanimity," because I have sometimes seen it applied to the grossest of impostors by the greatest of fools; but I would have "explained the circumstance," notwithstanding "the suppression of the book," if Mr. Bowles had expressed any desire that I should. As the "gallant Galbraith" says to "Baillie Jarvie," "Well, the devil take the mistake, and all that occasioned it." I have had as great and greater mistakes made about me personally and poetically, once a month for these last ten years, and never cared very much about correcting one or the other, at least after the first eight and forty hours had gone over them.

I must now, however, say a word or two about Pope, of whom you have my opinion more at large in the unpublished letter on or to (for I forget which) the